Why can we still not see GP's?

[ssd]

I had to send pictures on WhatsApp to my gp this morning after a telephone call appointment. Why are GPs still not seeing patients? How on earth do old folk manage?

My GP surgery has the option to fill in a form about the issue and have them contact you within 24 hours. I really like it - there’s enough space to explain everything and I can just write things out instead of trying to remember what I wanted to say, and it asks what you want from the consult, if you’d rather have help from a particular doctor etc.

OP it doesn’t sound like you really needed a face to face, and I think the GP was asking if you were happy because of your anxiety and not because they distrust their own opinion.

As someone with a lot of health problems I’ve appreciated actually being able to get hold of doctors easily these past few months now they’re not constantly seeing people who could have just asked a pharmacist for advice - disappointing to hear pharmacists on this thread complain about this as lots of people really should be asking a pharmacist and not taking up GP appointments.

If we could email and get a reply back by email, now THAT would be useful for some things, and save them lots of time, and save those of us who find it difficult to wait in for a randomly timed phone call from having to have a whole day off for routine issues

I had pneumonia a few years ago which was missed by a gp in a phone consultation. (He thought I just had a tummy bug because I mentioned diarrhea. To be fair, I didn't make myself clear because I felt so ill l was talking gibberish). I went to a and e a couple of days later and was put straight into resus.
I think phone consultations are ok if you're not seriously ill but can potentially be quite dangerous if you are.
Also, my pneumonia could have been treated with a course of antibiotics at home, but I ended up spending two nights in hospital which must be hugely costly to the NHS.